lands of the Achelous and the Fidari. It is occupied by a swamp
filled with fresh, brackish, or salt water; and since the days of
ancient Greece, this swamp, owing to the apathy of the inhabitants,
has continued to increase in extent at the expense of the cultivated
land. Missolonghi the heroic is indebted for its name to its position
near these marshes, for the meaning of it is “centre of marshes.” A
barrier, or _ramma_, here and there broken through by the floods,
separates the basin of Missolonghi from the Ionian Sea. During the
war of independence every opening in this barrier was protected by
redoubts or stockades, but at present the only obstruction consists
of the reed barriers of the fishermen, which are opened in spring to
admit the fish from the sea, and closed in summer to prevent their
escape. Missolonghi, though surrounded by brackish water, is a healthy
place, thanks to the breezes from the sea; whilst a heavy atmosphere
charged with miasmata hangs perpetually over the bustling little town
of Ætoliko (Anatolikon), which lies farther to the north-west in the
midst of the swamps, and is joined to the dry land by two bridges.
Between Ætoliko and the river Achelous may be observed a large number
of rocky eminences, rising like pyramids above the plain. These are
no doubt ancient islands, such as still exist between the mainland
and the island of St. Mauro. The mud brought down by the Achelous has
gradually converted the intervals between these {50} rocks into dry
land. In former times the commercial city of Œniadæ occupied one of
these islets. The geological changes already noticed by Herodotus are
thus still going on under our eyes, and the muds of the Achelous, to
which it owes its modern name of Aspro, or “white,” incessantly extend
the land at the expense of the sea.
[Illustration: Fig. 13.—THERMOPYLÆ.
From the French Staff Map (1852). Scale 1 : 330,000.]
The Achelous, which the ancients likened to a savage bull, owing to
its rapid current and great volume, is by far the most important river
of Greece. One of the great feats ascribed to Hercules consisted
in breaking off one of the horns of this bull; that is to say, he
embanked the river, and thus protected the lands which it used to
inundate. The neighbours of the Achelous, the rapid Fidari (Evenus, on
the banks of which Hercules killed the centaur Nessus, for offering
violence to Dejanira) and the Mornos, which rises in the snows of the
Œta, cannot compare with it. Still less is it equalled by the Oropus,
the Cephissus, and the Ilissus, “wet only when it rains,” which flow
eastward into the Ægean Sea. The principal river of Eastern Greece, the
Sperchius, is inferior to the Achelous, but, like it, has extensively
changed the aspect of the plain near its mouth. When Leonidas and his
three hundred heroes guarded the defiles of Thermopylæ against the
Persians, the Gulf of Lamia extended much farther into the land than
it does now. But the alluvial deposits of the river have extended its
delta, and several rivulets which formerly flowed {51} directly into
the sea have now to be numbered amongst its tributaries; the sea has
retired from the foot of the Callidromus for a distance of several
miles; and the narrow pass of Thermopylæ has been converted into a
plain sufficiently wide to enable an entire army to manœuvre upon it.
The hot springs which gush from the rocks, by forming deposits of
calcareous tufa, may likewise have contributed towards this change
of coast-line; nor are more violent convulsions of nature precluded
in a volcanic region like this, subject to frequent earthquakes.
Sailors still point out a small island in this neighbourhood, formed
of scoriæ, from which the incensed Hercules hurled his companion,
Lichas, into the ocean. Hot springs abound on the opposite coast of
Eubœa, and the incrustations formed by them are so considerable as to
assume the appearance of glaciers when seen from a distance. A bathing
establishment exists now near the hot sulphur springs of Thermopylæ,
and strangers are thus enabled to explore this region, so rich in
memories of a great past. The pedestal, however, upon which reposed
the figure of a marble lion, placed there in honour of Leonidas, has
been destroyed by ruthless hands, and utilised in the construction of a
mill !
The basin of the Cephissus, enclosed by the chains of the Œta and
Parnassus, is one of the most remarkable from an hydrological point
of view. The river first flows through a bottom-land formerly a
lake, and then, forcing for itself a passage through a narrow defile
commanded by the spurs of Mount Parnassus, it winds round the rock upon
which stood the ancient city of Orchomenus, and enters upon a vast
plain, where swamps and lakes are embedded amidst cultivated fields
and reed-banks. These swamps are fed, likewise, by numerous torrents
descending from the Helicon and other mountains in its vicinity. One
of these is the torrent of Livadia, into which the bounteous springs
of Memory and Oblivion—Mnemosyne and Lethe—discharge themselves. In
summer a large portion of the plain is dry, and it yields a bountiful
harvest of maize, the stalks of which are sweet like sugar-cane. But
after the heavy rains of autumn and winter the waters rise twenty,
and even twenty-five feet, and the plain is converted into a vast
lake, ninety-six square miles in extent. The myth of the deluge of
Ogyges almost leads us to believe that the rising floods occasionally
invaded every valley which debouches into this basin. To the ancients
the shallower part of this lake was known as Cephissus, and its deep
eastern portion as Copais, from Copæ, a town occupying a promontory on
its northern shore, and now called Topolias.
[Illustration: Fig. 14.—LAKE COPAIS
From the French Staff Map. Scale 1 : 500,000.
K. Katavothras.]
The importance of regulating the floods just referred to, and of
preventing the sudden overflow of the waters to the destruction of the
cultivated fields, may readily be imagined. The ancient Greeks made
an effort to accomplish this task. To the east of the large Lake of
Copais there is another lake basin, about one hundred and thirty feet
lower, and encompassed by precipitous rocks, incapable of cultivation.
This basin, the Hylice of the Bœotians, appears to be made by nature
for receiving the superabundant waters of the Copais. The remains of a
canal may still be traced in the plain, which was evidently intended to
convey into {52} it the floods of the Copais, but it appears never to
have been completed. No doubt care was taken to keep open the various
_katavothras_, or subterranean channels, through which the waters of
the Copaic lake discharge themselves into the sea. One of these, on the
north-western shore of the lake, and close to the rock of Orchomenus,
swallowed up the river Melas, and conveyed its waters to the Gulf of
Atalanta. Farther to the east other subterranean channels flow towards
Lakes Hylice and Paralimni, but the most important of these channels
are towards the north-east, in the Gulf of Kokkino. In that extreme
angle of the lake, the veritable Copais, the waters of the Cephissus
rush against the foot of Mount Skroponeri, and are swallowed up by
the ground so as to form a subterranean delta. To the south there is
a cavernous opening in the rock, but this is merely a sort of tunnel
passing underneath a promontory, and, except during the rainy season,
it may be traversed dry-shod. Beyond this, another opening swallows
up one of the most important branches of the Cephissus, which makes
its reappearance in the shape of bounteous springs pouring their
waters into the sea. Two other branches of the river disappear in
the rocks about a mile farther north. They join soon afterwards, and
flow northwards beneath the bottom of a sinuous valley. The old Greek
engineers dug pits in this valley, which enabled them to descend to
the subterranean waters, and to clear away obstructions interfering
with their flow. Sixteen of these pits have been discovered between
the opening of the katavothra and the place where the waters reappear.
Some of these are still thirty to one hundred feet in depth; but most
of them have become choked up with stones and earth. These ancient
engineering works, which Crates vainly endeavoured to restore in the
time of Alexander, may possibly date {53} from the mythical age of
King Minyas of Orchomenus,[15] and the successful draining of these
marshes may account for the well-filled treasury of that king spoken
of by Homer. Thus the ingenuity of the Homeric age had succeeded in
accomplishing a work of the engineering art which baffles our modern
men of science !
[Illustration: PEASANTS FROM THE ENVIRONS OF ATHENS.]
* * * * *
The whole of Western Greece, filled as it is by the mountains of
Acarnania, Ætolia, and Phocis, is condemned by nature to play a very
subordinate part to the eastern provinces. In the time of the ancient
Greeks these provinces were looked upon almost as a portion of the
world of the barbarians, and even in our own days the Ætolians are the
least cultivated of all the Greeks. There is no commerce except at a
few privileged places close to the sea, such as Missolonghi, Ætoliko,
Salona, and Galaxidi. The latter, which is situated on a bay, into
which flows the Pleistus, a river at one time consecrated to Neptune,
although quite dry during the greater part of the year, was, up to
the war of independence, the busiest seaport on the Gulf of Corinth.
As for Naupactus, or Epakto, (called Lepanto by the Italians), it
was important merely from a strategical point of view, on account
of its position at the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth, which is
sometimes named after it. Many naval engagements were fought to force
the entrance into the gulf, defended by the castles of Rumelia and
Morea—the ancient Rhium and Antirrhium. A curious phenomenon has been
observed in connection with the channel which forms the entrance to the
Gulf of Corinth. Nowhere more than 36 fathoms in depth, it is subject
to perpetual changes in its width, owing to the formation of alluvial
deposits by maritime currents. What one current deposits is carried
away by the other. At the epoch of the Peloponnesian war this channel
was 7 stadia, or about 1,200 yards, wide; at the time of Strabo its
width was only 5 stadia; whilst in our own days it is no less than
2,200 yards from promontory to promontory. The entrance of the Gulf of
Arta, between the Turkish Epirus and Greek Acarnania, does not present
the same phenomena, and its present width is about equal to that
assigned to it by every ancient author; that is to say, about 1,000
yards.
The valleys and lake basins of Eastern Greece, and more especially its
position between the Gulf of Corinth, the Ægean Sea, and the channel of
Eubœa, which almost convert it into a peninsula, sufficiently account
for the prosperity of that country. With its cities of Thebes, Athens,
and Megara, it is essentially a land of historical reminiscences. The
contrast between the two most important districts of this region—Bœotia
and Attica—is very striking. The first of these is an inland basin, the
waters of which are collected into lakes, where mists accumulate, and
a rich vegetation springs forth from a fat alluvial soil. Attica, on
the other hand, is arid. A thin layer of mould covers the terraces of
its rocky slopes; its valleys open out into the sea; the summits of its
mountains rise into an azure sky; and the blue waters of the Ægean wash
their base. Had the Greeks been fearful of the sea; had they confined
themselves, as in the earliest {54} ages, to the cultivation of the
soil, Bœotia, no doubt, would have retained the preponderance which
it enjoyed in the time of the Minyæ of wealthy Orchomenus. But the
progress of navigation and the allurements of commerce, which proved
irresistible to the Greeks, were bound by degrees to transfer the lead
to the men of Attica. The city of Athens, which arose in the midst of
the largest plain of this peninsula, therefore occupied a position
which assured to it a grand future.
[Illustration: Fig. 15.—THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS.]
The choice of Athens as the modern capital of Greece has been much
criticized. Times have changed, no doubt, and the natural centres
of commerce have become shifted, in consequence of the migrations
of nations. Corinth, on the isthmus joining continental Greece to
the Peloponnesus, and commanding two seas, undoubtedly deserved the
preference. Its facilities for communicating with Constantinople and
the Greek maritime districts still under the rule of the Osmanli, on
the one hand, and with the western world, from which now proceed all
civilising impulses, on the other, are certainly greater than those
of Athens. If Greece, instead of a small centralised kingdom, had
become a federal republic, which would have been more in accordance
with her genius and traditions, there is no doubt that other towns of
Greece, more favourably situated than Athens for establishing rapid
communications with the rest of Europe, would soon have surpassed that
town in population and commercial wealth. Athens, however, has grown
upon its plain, and, by the construction of a railway, it has become
even {55} a maritime city, as in ancient days, when its triple walls
joined it to the ports of the Piræus and Phalerum.
[Illustration: Fig. 16.—ATHENS AND ITS LONG WALLS.
According to Kiepert and Schmidt. Scale 1 : 114,000.]
But how great the difference between the monuments of the ancient
city and of the modern ! The Parthenon, though gutted by the shells
of the Venetian Morosini, and robbed since of its finest sculptures,
still retains its pure and simple beauty, which agrees so well with
the sobriety of the surrounding landscape—still remains the finest
architectural work of the world. By the side of this majestic ruin, on
the same plateau of the Acropolis, where the mariner in the Gulf of
Ægina saw the gilt spear-head of Athene Promachos glitter in the sun,
there rise other monuments, the Erechtheum and the Propylæa, hardly
inferior to it, and dating likewise from the great period of art.
Outside the city, on a promontory, rises the temple of Theseus, the
best-preserved monument of Greek antiquity. Elsewhere, on the banks
of the Ilissus, a group of columns marks the site of the magnificent
temple of Olympian Jupiter, which it took the Athenians seven hundred
years to build, and which their degenerate descendants made use of as
a quarry. Remarkable remains have been discovered in many other parts
of the ancient city, and the least of them are of interest, for they
recall the memory of illustrious men. On such a rock sat the Areopagus
which condemned Socrates; from this stone tribune Demosthenes addressed
the multitude; and here walked Plato with his disciples !
A similar historical interest attaches to nearly every part of Attica,
whether we visit the city of Eleusis, where the mysteries of Ceres were
celebrated, or the {56} city of Megara, with its double Acropolis,
or whether we explore the field of Marathon and the shores of the
island of Salamis. Even beyond Attica the memories of the past attract
the traveller to Platæa, to Leuctra, Chæronea, Thebes of Œdipus, and
Orchomenus of Minyas, though, in comparison with what these districts
were in other times, they are now deserts. In addition to Athens and
Thebes, there are now only two cities in eastern continental Greece
which are of any importance. These are Lamia, in the midst of the low
plains of the Sperchius, and Livadia, in Bœotia, at one time celebrated
for the cavern of Trophonius, which archæologists have not yet
succeeded in identifying. The island of Ægina, which belongs to Attica,
offers the same spectacle of decay and depopulation as the mainland.
Anciently it supported more than two hundred thousand inhabitants; at
present it hardly numbers six thousand. But the island still retains
the picturesque ruin of its temple of Minerva, and the prospect which
it affords of the amphitheatre of hills in Argolis and Attica is as
magnificent as ever.
[Illustration: Fig. 17.—ANCIENT ATHENS.
According to Kiepert and Schmidt. Scale 1 : 30,000.]
III.—THE MOREA, OR PELOPONNESUS.
Geographically the Peloponnesus well deserves the name of island,
which was bestowed upon it by the ancients. The low Isthmus of Corinth
completely severs it from the mountainous peninsula of Greece. It is
a world in itself, small enough as far as the mere space is concerned
which it occupies upon the map, but great on account of the part it has
played in the history of humanity. {57}
On entering the Peloponnesus from the Isthmus of Corinth, we see rising
in front of us the mountain rampart of Oneium, which defended the
entrance of the peninsula, and upon one of whose promontories was built
the nearly impregnable citadel of Corinth. These mountains form part
of the general mountain system of the whole island, and, sheltered by
them, its inhabitants could live in security. The principal mountain
mass, whence all other chains radiate towards the entrances of the
peninsula, is situated in the interior of the country, about forty
miles to the west of Corinth. There Mount Cyllene of the ancient
Greeks, or Zyria, rises into the air, its flanks covered with dark
pines; and farther away still, the Khelmos, or Aroanian Mountain,
attains even a more considerable height, its snows descending into a
valley on its northern slope, where they give rise to the river Styx,
the cold waters of which prove fatal to perjurers, and disappear in
a narrow chasm, one of the entrances to Hades. A range of wooded
peaks, to the west of the Khelmos, connects that mountain with the
Olonos (Mount Erymanthus), celebrated as the haunt of the savage boar
destroyed by Hercules. All those mountains, from Corinth as far as
Patras, form a rampart running parallel with the southern shore of
the gulf, in the direction of which they throw off spurs enclosing
steep valleys. In one of these—that of Buraikos—we meet with the grand
caverns of Mega-Spileon, which are used as a monastery, and where the
most curious structures may be seen built up on every vantage-ground
offered by the rocks, suggesting a resemblance to the cells of a vast
nest of hornets.
The table-land of the Peloponnesus is thus bounded towards the north by
an elevated coast range. Another chain of the same kind bounds it on
the east. It likewise starts from Mount Cyllene, and extends southward,
its various portions being known as Gaurias, Malevo (Mount Artemisium),
and Parthenion. It is then broken through by a vast depression, but
again rises farther south as the range of Hagios Petros, or Parnon,
to the east of Sparta. Getting lower by degrees, it terminates in the
promontory of Malea, opposite to the island of Cerigo. It was this
cape, tradition tells us, which formed the last refuge of the Centaurs;
that is to say, of the barbarian ancestors of the modern Tsakonians. No
promontory was more dreaded by Greek navigators than this Cape Malea,
owing to sudden gusts of wind, and an ancient proverb says, “When thou
hast doubled the cape forget the name of thy native land.”
The mountains of Western Morea do not present the regularity of the
eastern chain. They are cut through by rivers, and to the south of the
Aroanian Mountains and the Erymanthus they ramify into a multitude
of minor chains, which now and then combine into mountain groups,
and impart the most varied aspect to that portion of the plateau.
Everywhere in the valleys we come unexpectedly upon landscapes to which
an indescribable charm is imparted by a group of trees, a spring, a
flock of sheep, or a shepherd sitting upon a heap of ruins. We are in
beautiful Arcadia, sung by the poets. Though in great part deprived of
its woods, it is still a beautiful country; but more charming still
are the eastern slopes of the plateau, which descend towards the
Ionian Sea. There luxuriant forests and {58} sparkling rivulets add
an element of beauty to blue waves, distant islands, and a transparent
sky, which is wanting in nearly every other part of maritime Greece.
[Illustration: Fig. 18.—MOUNT TAYGETUS.]
The table-land of Arcadia is commanded on the west by pine-clad
Mænalus, and bounded on the south by several mountain groups which give
birth to separate mountain chains. One of these mountain masses—the
Kotylion, or Palæocastro—thus gives rise to the mountains of Messenia,
amongst which rises the famous Ithome, and to those of Ægaleus,
which spread over the peninsula to the west of the Gulf of Coron,
and reappear in the sea as the rocky islets of Sapienza, Cabrera,
and Venetikon. Another mountain mass, the Lycæus, or Diaforti—the
Arcadian Olympus, which the Pelasgians claim for their cradle—and
which rises almost in the centre of the Peloponnesus, is continued
westward of Laconia by an extended mountain chain, the most elevated
and most characteristic of all the Morea. The highest crest of these
mountains is the famous Taygetus, known also as Pentedactylum (five
fingers), because of the five peaks which surmount it; or as St. Elias,
in honour, no doubt, of Helios, the Dorian sun-god. A portion of the
lower slopes of this mountain is clothed with forests of chestnuts and
walnuts. {59} interspersed with cypresses and oaks; but its crest is
bare, and snow remains upon it during three-fourths of the year. The
snows of Taygetus direct the distant mariner to the shores of Greece.
On approaching the coast, he sees rising above the blue waters the
spurs and outlying ridges of the Kakavuni, or “bad mountain.” Soon
afterwards he comes in sight of the promontory of Tainaron, with its
two capes of Matapan and Grasso—immense blocks of white marble more
than six hundred feet in height, upon which the quails settle in
millions after their fatiguing journey across the sea. Into the caverns
at its foot the waters rush with a dull noise which the ancients
mistook for the barking of Cerberus. Cape Matapan, like Malea, is
dreaded amongst mariners as a great “destroyer of men.”
The three southern extremities of the Peloponnesus are thus occupied
by high mountains and rocky declivities. The peninsula of Argolis, in
the east, is likewise traversed by mountain ranges, which start from
Mount Cyllene, similarly to the Gaurias and the mountains of Arcadia.
The whole of the Peloponnesus is thus a country of table-lands and
mountain ranges. If we except the plains of Elis, which have been
formed by the alluvial deposits carried down by the rivers of Arcadia,
and the lake basins of the interior, which have been filled up in the
course of ages, we meet with nothing but mountains.[16] The principal
mountain masses—the Cyllene, the Taygetus, and Parnon—are composed
of crystalline schists and metamorphic marbles, as in continental
Greece. Strata of the Jurassic age and beds of cretaceous limestone
are here and there met with at the foot of these more ancient rocks.
Near the coast, in Argolis, and on the flanks of the Taygetus,
eruptions of serpentines and porphyries have taken place, whilst
on the north-eastern coast of Argolis, and especially on the small
peninsula of Methone, there exist recent volcanoes—amongst others,
the Kaimenipetra, which M. Fouqué identifies with the fire-vomiting
mouths of Strabo, and which had its last eruption twenty-one centuries
ago. These volcanoes are, no doubt, the vents of a submarine area of
disturbance which extends through Milos, Santorin, and Nisyros, to the
south of the Ægean Sea.
The sulphur springs which abound on the western coast of the
Peloponnesus are, perhaps, likewise evidences of a reaction of the
interior of the earth.
It is the opinion of several geologists that the coasts of Western
Greece are being insensibly upheaved. In many places, and particularly
at Corinth, we meet with ancient caverns and sea beaches at an
elevation of several feet above the sea-level. It is this upheaval, and
not merely the alluvial deposits brought down by rivers, which explains
the encroachment of the land upon the sea at the mouth of the Achelous
and on the coast of Elis, where four rocky islets have been joined to
the land. Elsewhere a subsidence of the land has been noticed, as in
the Gulf of {60} Marathonisi and on the eastern coast of Greece, where
the ancient peninsula of Elaphonisi has been converted into an island.
But even there the fluvial deposits have encroached upon the sea. The
city of Calamata is twice as distant from the seashore now as in the
days of Strabo, and the traces of the ancient haven of Helos, on the
coast of Laconia, are now far inland.
* * * * *